Hi everyone. I hope you like the video! Hopefully this video inspired you to start learning a language you've been wanting to learn. If you're interested in doing it the way I did it, check out these resources: ▶ Get a free lesson credit for italki: www.italki.com/en/affshare?ref=langfocus ◀ ▶ Get a Pimsleur 7 day free trial: imp.i271380.net/langfocus ◀ Disclosure: If you make a purchase, Langfocus gets a small referral fee that helps support this channel (at no extra cost to you).
Do you have another channel called Knowledgia? I just watched a video about why Portugal was not conquered by Spain. The narrator sounds like you - I say this because your speech pattern and inflection is very distinctive! If this is not you, then just know you have a vocal doppelganger somewhere out there!
It's a complete disgrace that Persian/Farsi is not included in Duolingo, one of the preeminant places to start learning languages for inquirers. Yet, they include Klingon and Esperanto, while Persian is one of the world's most important languages with 5000 years of history. My gut tells me there is a political reason it's not included. However, it is very hard to find ANY free resources online for learning Persian...sadly.
Not to offend you but why would anyone learn Persian? It is only spoken in 3 countries at most and 90% of the world’s population don’t like these countries… I’m not talking politics but you cannot deny that politics is a significant part in learning a language, historical significance alone isn’t enough to make a language important, or you would see everyone learning Latin or Hebrew
@@br19_yt It's one of the oldest languages in the world and had influenced in many other languages. I know that for example English is the most important language now, but Persian is also one of the most alived languages in the world and 120 Million peoples (minimum) speak this language; like German which is also spoken by 120 Million peoples
@@br19_yt Duolingo has Zulu, I think that falls into the same idea of why Persian isn't available, yet they have it. Persian is quite an interesting language and many countries have taken loan words from it. Either way different people have various reason to learn a language. I do agree for Americans it's pretty difficult to travel to Iran so they are less likely to learn it. It's a shame since it's a pretty fun tourist place.
@@lambert801 as I said before, if historical significance alone is enough more people would learn latin or hebrew… All of your points are subjective and influenced by emotions, people liking how a language sounds is totally subjective and doesn’t stand on scientific base, it is just a preference aspect, it is like saying French is the best language because people love how it sounds. And you can’t compare Japanese and Korean to Persian, they have a huge influence (both in industrial and pop-culture aspects) more than Persian has or had, again I’m not trying to offend anyone I’m just stating facts
بعد از گذشت چند سال بالاخره یک ویدیوی دیگه درباره ی زبان کشور من (فارسی) ساختید ، فوق العاده بود ✨️ سپاس از رحماتتون برای شناساندن فارسی به مردم سایر کشور ها🙏🏻💙
“Har ke Bamash bish, barfash bishtar” “The bigger your roof is, the more snow you get” meaning that the wealthier you are, more responsibilities/troubles/headaches you have to endure.
@BIazy "rich kid" usually has responsibility than the "poor kid", but the proverb wasn't created for the kids and the wealth belongs to the dads. And as you know, the rich irresponsible kid that inherits all the money will also throw it away for that exact reason: not learning responsibility.
Of the languages I've studied, Persian is my favorite. It sounds so beautiful to my ears, the grammar is the most logical of those I've studied, and it's fun finding Indo-European cognates. Also the Iranians, Tajiks, and Afghani people I've met have been so kind and friendly.
I'm so happy to see you make another video on persian after so, so long. I've watched your video on persian so many times as I learned persian and now as someone fluent in Persian I'm really happy to see this
i am from south India, i like persian songs and its rhythms. present Day Iran or persia had strong historical relations with Hindustan or India. avestan language of old Iran and sanskrit have many similarities, present day Hindi/Urdu have many Persian avestan words. some say people of north India mixed with aryans from central asia (mainly Iran) from thousands of years ago, the word Aryan means noble people
I once shared an office with a guy from Iran, a man given to loud phone conversations with his sister. Wishing to reduce the volume, I went to a Farsi 101 webpage and the next morning, greeted him with a cheery "chetori!". Not knowing whether I knew more than that single word, his phonecalls got a lot quieter from that point - RESULT:D
I'm a Persian speaker from Afghanistan. Thank you for your beautiful and informative content. Your speaking has improved very well. I understand the Iranian Persian 100% and Tajiki somewhat 90-95%. 🇦🇫❤🇮🇷🇹🇯 I want to share a famous poem from Rumi (1207-1273) who was born in Balkh, Present-day Afghanistan: از کفر و ز اسلام برون صحرائیست (az kofr-o ze eslām beron sahrāyist) ما را به میان آن فضا سودائیست (mā rā ba miyān-e ān fazā sawdāyist) عارف چو بدان رسید سر را بنهد (āref cho badān rasid sar rā benahad) نه کفر و نه اسلام و نه آنجا جائیست (na kofr-o na eslām-o na ānjā jāyist) These lyrics are loosely translated as below: "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense."
Your teacher looks such a sweet and kind person that even though I have no intention of learning Persian, I wanted to take a lesson from her. Good luck.
Thanks for this enjoying video. I’m Persian and because you asked to share a Persian idiom, here is my recommended idiom which it’s like poem. “گر صبر کنی، ز غوره حلوا سازی!” In English letters: “Gar sabr koni, zeh ghooreh Halva sazi!” It literally means: “If you are patient, you can make Halva from verjuice” Halva means (A sweet food made from flour and sugar and butter)) Although Halva has different forms and I mentioned the simplest version. But it has an indirect meaning. You can’t really make a sweet food using a sour ingredient. It doesn’t work logically. But it’s an exaggeration to make a point about how effective and good is to be patient. If you are patient, you can do impossible things. At last, I need to say that there are two words that mostly used in poem and not in speaking generally. 1. “گر” (gar) means if is an ancient and shorter version of word “اگر” (agar) or “اگه” (aggeh) in daily speaking. 2. “ز” (zeh) is also ancient and different version of word “از” (az) which means “from” I hope you can master this language. خوش بگذره! (Have a good time!)
whenever somebody asks us to do something we'll say "beh rooyeh cheshm" and literally, word by word means "on my eye"; but means i'll respect ur request so much that im ready to put it on my eyelids meaning {i will do whatever u ask for} and I think it's beautiful.
There probably will be. This is a million times more interesting for me than making a language profile. The only reason I developed my classic format is because I was scared to show myself actually learning languages.
@@Langfocus I really liked this video. I tried to nibble into Persian previously as I got interested in the history of this country. Never managed to get even to begginer's level. I liked your previous approach as well, as there were not many channels that focused on languages as professionally as you do. But this new video shows a new approach that could be more interesting for the audience and for yourself as well. Keep it up Paul!!!
as an Iranian subscriber of your channel for a long time, I've learned much from you about language structures and different language families. I would be honored to give some of it back if you ever needed help regarding learning Persian. really enjoyed your video and also appreciate your effort to make connections with the culture of Iran; especially in a time like this!
Paul, you honestly did very well speaking Persian in such a short time! I’m very impressed, as speaking is the hardest of the four language skills! And your pronunciations are very good as well! I’ve been teaching my 9-year-old niece here in LOS Angeles; she’s half Persian and half polish. If you want to improve further, I’d be happy to practice conversation with you, using beginner words and speaking succinctly and slowly.
I'm also taking Farsi class once a week. I can relate to your excitement as well as challenges in learning this beautiful language. Keep up the good work :)
Paul, you've done it now. Persian has been on the back burner for awhile, especially now that i'm focusing on Spanish, but you've made it look so fun. I might have to take on two languages at once. side note, I appreciate the way you present yourself and your channel. There are too many channels that focus on "Learn X language in 30 days!" from youtubers claiming to speak 10 languages fluently and with ease. You're very transparent on how long it'll take to learn a language, and that none of them are easy. Thank you for your honesty
It's so easy to see edited RU-vid videos and get the impression that all these people are just learning and doing things instantly. I appreciate seeing the errors even though i know it's happening in the background with these videos.
Go for it! I'm jealous, you'll have access to one of the most profound literary languages in history! It's also pretty so :) I'll follow your lead once I finish learning uzbek
When you speak English, you shouldn't say "Farsi", you should say "Persian". As an Arab doesn't say I speak Al-Arabiyyah, he says I speak Arabic. As a German doesn't say I speak Deutsch, he says I speak German. لطفا اینو رعایت کن داداش.
This error makes sense because native-English speakers aren't very good at several sounds in other languages, so the kh or gh of Persian become K and G, the ch of German becomes k, the ll of Welsh becomes L or H, etc. That said, Paul is no ordinary native-English speaker, so it's interesting that he didn't catch the distinction in the k/kh.
@@I.____.....__...__ I didn't actually know what Kurdish was called in Persian, so I heard "khordi" and because of the "i" at the end I thought it was an adjective form like "ingerisi" for English or "faransawi" for French. "kh" sounds (ie. velar or uvular fricatives) in foreign languages often become /k/ in English, so I though the /k/ in Kurdish could be a "kh" in Persian. Note that I had no time to think and my mind was processing lots of things at the same time. I didn't even catch the other words in the sentence even though I think I knew them all. I am pretty much a regular English speaker. It was important for me to do this video so people see I'm not some genius or linguistic master. There is absolutely nothing smooth about me diving into a language. It's a total mess, but there's no way around that at first, especially if you want to make rapid progress. Even in my usual videos, the polished presentation you see is the result of me taking a huge mess (endless amounts of information) and painstakingly making sense of it. Once I understand it, then I'm confident the audience can understand it, but it takes a lot to get to that point. It seems to unintentionally create the illusion that languages come easily to me, or that I'm an expert in the topics I talk about, but neither is true. I never hide that and want everyone to see it.
@@Langfocus That incident reminds me of something I read once. A Japanese professor of English was attending a party at the home of a British socialite. At one point, the hostess offered her guest a drink: "Professor, do you like sherry?" The confused professor answered back, "No I prefer Keats." And both hostess and guest stood there, staring at each other blankly, utterly bewildered by the other's statements. 😆
I am russain and I learn turkish language. I knew that turkish had big persian influence, but WOW! I can recognize so much words, even so simple like "I" ("ben" in turkish), "or" ("ama"), "city" ("shehir")...
@@bezgin30 Hayır, sadece Farsça ve Arapça değildi. Türkçe idi ama çok fazla Arapça, Farsça etkisi vardı. Hatta, imparatorlukta konuşulan dillerden de etkilenmişti. Örneğin bir çok Yunanca kelime vardı. Hâlâ da var.
Oh, I am sad I couldn't jump in to help!😂 Lang focus is my go to channel when ever I want to learn about a new language! I have to say it was impressive to be honest for just 2 weeks!
Damn, you learned so much in 2 weeks! As a farsi speaker I am super impressed! You actually spoke really well and your grammar was almost completely correct 👏👏👏
not gonna lie, you talk very well my friend. Farsi is sweet and fun/easy to learn language. واست ارزوی موفقیت میکنم و خیلی خوشحالم که داری فارسی یاد میگیری. امیدوارم بتونی یه روز شاهنامه فردوسی رو بخونی.
Hi Langfocus! Great content as always. I'd love to see a video on the Mhallami language. It's a fascinating subject that deserves more attention. Keep up the amazing work!"
@@flesz_It's actually important to us but unfortunately our government keeps the internet speed on the low side so they can prevent proper access to other countries, socially, politically, and scientifically,
@@flesz_ Umm no? It is very important to "these people" as I'm writing this comment they are actually routing a Fiber optics Internet connection to my home in Iran
Dude. That was a wild ride. What you did there needed courage why above and beyond I would have been able to muster. I congratulate you on your progress (and of course of course on your son. I didn't know.)
Thanks! The real courage comes with doing this for a video that a lot of people might see. So I had to keep telling myself that the reality will be interesting to see, even if I don't do very well.
I live in NY state and I learnt the basics of French in a few months before a trip to Québec. I stuck with it on and off for a bit after whilst studying other Romance languages. Last year i visited Québec again and practiced some more! J'adore le Québec ❤
_Hut ab._ My hat's off to you. Not only for your talent at picking up quite a lot of what is not a simple language, but for your outreach. More of this and the world would be a much better place. Cheers and _Grüße aus sonnigem 'Wien,_ Scott
I loved this video! I learned a lot of farsi when I was a uni student from my boyfriend who was from tehran. I am so thrilled to still be able to understand basic farsi. I can also read farsi slowly. I love the persian language. Thank you for sharing this experience.
Hey Paul! I've been following you for a long time now and learned a lot from you. I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this video and it made me so happy to see you learning our language. Keep it up and I wish you the best!
Your final question is actually interesting, Persian, in day to day, is mostly used with expressions, memes, slangs and poems! Rarely in the textbook form. For example, you'd say "You'd became like the Canopus (star)" (Setaare Soheyl shodi, you don't show up anymore) and others would say "Nah, actually it's you, a friend last year, now just somebody that I know" (Emsaal dust, parsaal ashna, you are not as intimate anymore) and as the example continues he might add like "If you are not aware of your friend my man, don't assume that we are having a break, not thinking about you [poem, rhymes]" (by Sa'adi) and so forth... Literally, everyday goes like this especially in the more intellectual communities. Something I missed in any other language I learned. اگر تو فارغی از حال دوستان یارا. فراغت از تو میسّر نمی‌شود ما را.
Hope youll be successful on learning Persian, im Iranian and i enjoyed watching this video. When i read the comments there were some comments that said persian is not important to learn:/ please know that every language is important in it own way, we cant compare them. We can just say which will benefit us in the future by learning it and which we can use in our life.
This is such a valuable video to me. It really gave me lots of ideas about how to solidify my language learning in the future. While it is obviously never possible to reach any level of fluency in a language in 2 weeks, it's still a fun challenge to see how much you can improve in a short time-frame and I want to see if I can try something like that with my languages
Paul, I am damned impressed! Even if you did a lot of editing, you still did a fantastic job learning to speak a completely new language with some smoothness.
Great video. Farsi, although very structured, is not easy to learn as it has many levels of formality and informality and due to the enormous number of words and the fact that one idea can be expressed in many many ways, is not so easy to master. We won’t even get in to the numerous regional dialects. You absolutely have a gift. The Arabic language did not have a written form. That, plus the way to write numbers, was taken from old Persian language. The reason some think the alphabet and numerals are Arabic is because of an age of high level of scientific advances in Iran after islam. Everything was mentioned under the umbrella of an Islamic ( hence Arabic ) advancement. Many Persian scientists, philosophers, etc. are erroneously thought to be Arabic because that was what they were forced to use. The stories of the Arabian Nights are from a Persian woman ( Shahrzaad) who was married to a Persian ruler.
Iranians may be nervous to talk about current events because their connection might be monitored by the government. And then bad things could happen to them if they say the wrong thing.
Right. I was already conscious of that, but I learned that people don't want to get anywhere near those subjects. What I said to that one guy was something along the lines of "Please stay safe" (after Iran had been hit by you-know-whats launched by you-know-who). Even that minor comment caused him distress.
in persian there is a saying "az maast ke bar maast", translates to "from us it is that comes at us" essentially "we are responsible for our own fate". 💕
حالا این چه ربطی داشت؟ به مردم دنیا چه که سرنوشت ما چیه. به جای گریه و زاری کردن و چغلی کردن از اینو اون برو یکم فکر کن ببن شاید خودت را هم بایستی کمی تغییر بدی.
Happy to see you learn persian. I followed your videos all along. At this time, when we are catching world attention by standing on the right side of history and resisting cruelty, your persian learning is a great support ❤
Thank you so much for this helpful video. You have just given me some tips and ideas on teaching Farsi to non native speakers. Keep up the good work and I would be happy to help you with any questions you may have as a Persian tutor. Just drop me a line.
If one can read and understand some German, I recommend a book "Lehrbuch der persischen Sprache". There can not be a better book or pedagogy to learn the language.
I really appreciate you giving Persian (Farsi) a shot. It's a beautiful language and I'm proud of how fast you learned a lot in such a small timeframe. keep it up you are a smart person
Dude, as a persian speaker, although the grammar is way easier than nearby languages like arabic and turkish, the written and spoken forms are almost different, and the fact that you have mastered to speak "virtually" correct spoken language is really inspiring because most foreigners who speak persian, learn the written form first ( which is not false of anything)
Thanks! That's one benefit of having a tutor. You can ask them to help you focus on the spoken forms rather than the written forms. Even the phrasebook I used (which should be for conversation) uses a lot of written forms. Also, when looking up new words, I often used Wiktionary.com to check them, because it usually gives both the literary form and colloquial form.
One of my favorite RU-vidrs learning my language ,a dream come true❤alot of people judge us because of our dictator government but our people love U.S.A. and western countries #woman_life_freedom #زن_زندگی_ازادی #ژن_ژیان_ئازادی
I am currently running a similar experiment. I gave myself one month to learn as much Farsi as possible and by the end of the month I want to surprise an Iranian friend I have by talking to her, at least a little bit, in Persian. Let's see how it goes :D
@@tomcolley9008 yeah it's difficult I've tried learning Kurdish myself. But I'm fluent in Persian I even featured on Bahador alast's video for speaking Persian
Yes man. internet connection in Iran is probably the scariest thing you can ever experience in your life. (Not always but if you are connected to a VPN it sometimes gets horribly weak.)
I think this video is pretty interesting because it really reflects what the journey to learn a language is. I've tried to learn some languages a little bit and speaking with people I said complete nonsense most of the time but people in general are really nice when you're trying to learn their language so it won't really cause any trouble to you. People from Afghanistan and Iran too are espacially kind and friendly when you try to speak with them in persian, at least that's my experience I've interacted with them during a certain amount of time and i ve never seen as kind and gentle people as they are.
This was actually fun. I occasionally learn Persian for around 5 years on my phone (with Memrise, Mondly, etc) and I don't think I'm good at it already but surprisingly I understood most of the conversations in this video.
A persian phrase which is related to your hard try: کار نیکو کردن از پر کردن است Meaning: Good results come from doing a lot (many times, for a long time) You know how to learn a language fast, because you have done it many times. So whenever someone asked you "Wow! how did you learn to talk such a good Persian?", you can answer poetically "Kaare nikoo kardan, az por kardan ast!" And his / her jaw will drop down 😅
omg thank you so much for sharing these awkward moments because they made me feel like I'm not the only one who makes embarrassing mistakes while trying to speak my target language. by the way I'm from Iran and good luck on learning Farsi!
I haven't experienced an Iranian internet connection, but I have experienced a Mexican mobile phone connection. A Mexican pastor I know traveled to the Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras area, and I had occasion to call him then. The quality went way down when he was on the Mexican side. The closest I've done to traveling somewhere where I didn't know any of the language was visiting Prague. I know a fair bit of Russian, so "východ" I understood immediately, and "příjezd/odjezd" I figured out with a little thought. (I had gotten off at the wrong station from the train from Berlin and had to figure out where to get on a train going the right way.) I didn't try to learn any of the language before I left.
Farsi is easier than Finnish, and they are our neighbours :-D But the Finnish language has a fascinating grammar, Tolkien used it for Elvish. Good luck with Farsi from Sweden!
Urdu is actually closer to Persian than Arabic. Urdu is actually a sister language to Hindi.Persian is more like the vocabulary used or the appearance.Basically Hindi and Urdu are like twins having different dressing senses. Get what I mean? Hindi likes to wear "Sanskrit" Urdu likes to wear "Persian"
Hello Mr Paul. Please check the Luri language. Luri is one of those in the big family of in the European languages and it's spoken in western and south western Iran as well as Eastern Iraq. I will send you any information that you need. Thank you very much🪻🪻
جوینده، یابنده‌ست😉 The seeker is the finder. Excited a lot by the title and thumbnail, and even more after watching. I truly appreciate and adore your enthusiasm and perseverance. Well done👏🏻
@@Langfocus That's unfortunate :( I'd love to see a follow up video if you continue studying. I'm ethnically Persian and grew up in the west and only recently started learning myself
As an English teacher and language enthusiast, I really enjoyed your video. Your approach to learning the language was interesting. I saved the video to watch it again later. (به عنوان یک معلم انگلیسی و علاقه‌مند به زبان، از تماشای ویدیوی شما لذت برم. رویکرد شما به یادگیریِ این زبان برایم جالب بود. ویدیو را ذخیره کردم تا بعدن دوباره ببینم) I also have a question for you: what are your challenges relating to the difference between spoken and written forms of the language?
@@Langfocus Pashmaaaam! A response from Paul in only 2 mins. ;) I like greeting Iranians with "pashmaam". They look first confused, then impressed, and then they laugh. And for the audience: It means something like "Shit / fuck / wow / impressive" depending on context.
A lot of people here on YT try to deceive and oversell regarding the learning of multiple languages. What you have shown is extremely impressive but also realistic! No one is fluent in a few weeks, or months. Props to you!
I used Pimsleur to learn Dari before spending time in Afghanistan,and really enjoyed the listen and respond approach which required me to do more than just parrot what I was told. I discovered the hard way it was rather stilted language I was taught. It took me a long time to connect the greeting that sounded like churasti said quickly with the ‘chitor astin’ I was taught. It was the dirrence between their ‘how you going?’ and my ‘how do you do?’
Using Arabic loanwords is a matter of personal choice depending of Iranians' level of nationalism who tend to avoid using Arabic loanwords and also how much a person knows classic Persian language affect their vocabulary, and of course majority of Iranians who neither know Grammar nor vocabulary.
@@majidbineshgar7156 It has absolutely nothing to do with "nationalism". MAYbe Persian conservatism. Those loanwords aren't new. It's not like a Korean speaking Konglish. Not to mention that an Azeri or a Kurd in Iran - as nationalist/Strict Shiite may be - couldn't care less from loanwords in his 2L.
It has absolutely nothing to do with "nationalism". MAYbe Persian conservatism. Those loanwords aren't new. It's not like a Korean speaking Konglish. Not to mention that an Azeri or a Kurd in Iran - as nationalist/Strict Shiite may be - couldn't care less from loanwords in his 2L.
@@user-sh3cf7kd6e Actually the ruling regime has been encouraging people to use more Arabic since it is their religious language accordingly they love to replace Persian with Arabic, but there has always been minority Iranian who have resisted .
@@majidbineshgar7156 Most people in Iran do not pay much attention to grammar because if you want to learn all the grammar and array, it will take a lot of time and you have to study it for many years in university to learn it completely. and the government's pressure for everyone to be Muslim has a negative effect and makes people hate hijab and religion
Hi Paul, I will be more than happy to speak with you in very slow and clear Farsi or whatever you need or require. It would be my pleasure. I am fluent in both Farsi and English. The progress you made in such a short time is simply: IMPRESSIVE!!! Khasteh Nabashi خسته نباشی
Kurdish Iranian❤️🤍💚 here! Have been watching your videos for YEARS at this point (now that I think of it, I speak English like Paul does lol). So happy to see you challenging yourself to learn Persian🥰🥲. PS: on the issue of the flag🇮🇷; It is the official flag of Iran & represents us in the international community. For me both 🇮🇷 & the 🦁☀️ flags are fine & are representative of my national identity. Hope my fellow-Iranians can understand that not everyone in the world is intrested in our internal political issues🤦🏻♂️!
I have tried to avoid speaking politics on this channel , you should have done the same , but now I will try to put it this way : generally speaking when any " Flag " happens to represent an ideology instead of national heritage of a country , it can never be fully accepted and identified by the majority of citizens of that nation .
@@majidbineshgar7156 نخست این‌که: تا زمانی که سه رنگ روش سرخ❤️ سپید🤍 و سبز💚 باشه برازنده ایرانه. دوم: این دیدگاه شماست که پرچم کنونی نمایانگر یک اندیشه سیاسی‌ست. بله دینی هست امّا سیاسی نه! پرچم بسیاری کشور ها هم نماد های دینی دارند؛ از ترکیه و پاکستان همسایه بگیرید تا ایسلند و نروژ. در هر حال دوست ندارم در میان هم‌میهنانم سر پرچم هم تفرقه و جدایی باشه؛ این روز ها نیازمند دیدگاه‌های میانه‌رو برای جلوگیری از دوقطبی‌های بیشتر هستیم.
@@shwanmirza9306 I am part Kalhor part Sorani & so I speak in a combination of both these dialects. Persian is the language of our textbooks at schools but teachers & students are free to speak Kurdish, discuss Kurdish literature & poetry on their own. Ironically, the "Persian literature" class is where we talk about Kurdish literature the most.
